Costume Jewelry

discipleship identity Oct 01, 2025

Love and Death: The Unavoidable Journeys

The bride says to the Bridegroom, “For love is as strong as death” (S.S. 8:6).

Love is inevitable just as death is inevitable. They have much in common. Neither one can be avoided. We may be able to postpone death or delay for a short time, but we cannot stop it. In a similar way, we cannot avoid love. We don’t choose who we love. Love happens and draws us.

When our love for God fades into the background, the pull of the world becomes louder, stronger. The world offers a thousand glittering distractions, each one catching our eye—but every one of them leads to a dead end. There is no true life in them. No lasting fulfillment. No abiding contentment. No real, enduring value.

When God's love conquers us, we become overcomers, and more than conquerors. What we are conquered by enables us to conquer that which will rob us of life. Death cannot conquer us. It has been stripped of its power. Death’s only trick left is to dazzle us with costume jewelry—glittering cares that fade, while Christ’s love remains.

Death reminds us of our limitations, but God’s love reveals our limitless potential. His love defeated death. And now, with His love alive in us, death has lost its grip. We no longer fear it. It cannot hold us. When God’s love becomes the crown on our lives, death itself becomes our final triumph, not our defeat.

This is the pearl of great price. Why would I settle for costume jewelry—the glory of this world. It does not compare with the treasure chest of Christ!

Jesus, my eyes are upon You the Pearl of Great Price. You are more precious to me than the costume jewelry of this world. I enjoy the beauty of this world through your eyes of eternal love and my heart dwells in meadows of Your beauty.

Just like death changes how we relate to life, love changes how we relate to the world. The more we are captivated by God’s love, the less appeal the temporary things hold. We begin to think eternally. Our eyes lift, and we start to walk in step with God’s dreams. The world grows "strangely dim," and our hearts awaken to the longing for a city not built by human hands. As lovers of God, we understand we are strangers here—pilgrims passing through—longing for home.

We only exist because God is love. He wanted a family. Love wants to openly love and ultimately to be loved. God wants to enjoy us. We are His pearls.

He didn’t need us. He wanted us.

The Song of Songs paints this intimate portrait of His deep longing for relationship with us. What a mystery! The God of all creation wants to commune with us—to love and be loved. Love is strong as death.

Death threatens us, but love beckons us. Death’s only attraction is the costume jewelry of this world. Love offers genuine invaluable pearls that never decay.

We will have to navigate the treacherous mountains of this world, but God is always faithful to meet us in His meadows of beauty and rest. His love is inevitable.